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November 20, 2011
A Partial List of Occupy Wall Street Criminality
There's just so much out there that no one list could be complete. Follow the link for the source link to each incident.
Occupy Wall Street Blotter
National Review
November 18, 2011 11:30 A.M.
By Nathaniel Botwinick
11/17/11: 275 Arrested at Occupy Wall Street
Two hundred and seventy five protesters were arrested for attempting to storm Wall Street to shut down the stock exchange and for blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. Seven police officers were injured, including one who was slashed with broken glass.11/17/11: Occupy Wall Street Protesters Threaten Children
Occupy Wall Street protesters threatened small children, some as young as four, as they attempted to get to school. The children were forced to walk a gauntlet in between screaming protesters and the police as they attempted to reach their school. Some of the protesters yelled, "Follow those kids," and attempted to frighten their parents.
11/17/11: Police Evict Occupy Dallas Eighteen protesters were arrested as police evicted Occupy Dallas's encampment. Dallas authorities said the situation had become "untenable" after "the arrests of almost two dozen demonstrators for blocking the entrance to a bank, arrest of a participant charged with failing to register as a sex offender and sexual assault of a child after being accused of having sex with a 14-year-old runaway at the camp, arrests for assault and public intoxication and a 9-month-old child taken into protective custody after the parents were living the campsite with the child."11/17/11: 14 Arrested for Blocking Bridge at Occupy St. Louis
Fourteen protesters were arrested at the entrance to the Martin Luther King Bridge in St. Louis. They were protesting in solidarity with other movements across the country. Uniformed members of the SEIU helped direct the protest. The protesters were joined by the Teamsters, United Autoworkers, American Postal Workers, and other union members.11/16/11: 16 Arrested at Occupy Cincinnati Following Visit by Jesse Jackson
Sixteen protesters were arrested at Occupy Cincinnati following a visit by Rev. Jesse Jackson. Fifteen protesters were arrested for criminal trespassing, while two were also charged with resisting arrest. Lloyd Jordan, 36, of Clifton, Illinois, was charged with disorderly conduct while intoxicated and obstructing official business after he photographed a covert police vehicle, including the license plate. The second half of Jackson's speech was repeated by the crowd line by line: "It's not about a place . . . it's about a state of mind. We fight for jobs. . . . We fight for health care . . . We are determined . . .We are not going away. Move our tents . . . but not our spirit."11/15/11: Police Shoot Gunman at Occupy Cal
Police shot a gunman who infiltrated Berkeley's Haas School of Business during major demonstrations at UC Berkeley. He was seen carrying a gun by a staff member in an elevator at the business school after 2 p.m. The police arrived at 2:19 p.m., and searched for the suspect in the building. Officers found the gunman in a third-floor computer room where there were at least four students. The suspect raised the gun and was shot by an officer. The protesters from Occupy Cal deny any affiliation with the man; there have been no statements from the police or the suspect so far regarding his views.11/15/11: 5 Arrested at Occupy LA (Including for Assault and Masturbation)
Five people from the Occupy LA movement were charged on Tuesday with a variety of crimes. Farid Ahntab, 24, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and resisting arrest for wielding a knife and as he tried to burn a food vendor. Robert Holland, Jr., 31, was charged with threatening someone with a knife and resisting arrest. Angele Chaidez, 21, has been charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating on the steps of City Hall last week and exposing himself in public. Zachary Isaac, 21, was charged with battery for allegedly punching a woman in the face in her tent. Finally, Michael Howard Thomson, 51, was charged with two counts of battery and one count of resisting arrest. He tried to take a two-year-old from its parent and is accused of punching a mediator. Afterwards, he fought the officers who arrested him.11/15/11: NYPD Clears Zuccotti Park, 200 Arrested
The New York Police Department moved in early this morning and cleared out the protesters from Occupy Wall Street. The protesters will be allowed to return to the park, but will not be allowed to bring tents or sleeping bags. The protesters fought with police officers for several hours, and there were injuries reported amongst both the police and the protesters.11/13/11: Man Threatens Woman with Arson at Occupy Portland
Occupy Portland protester threatens to burn down the house of a woman who disagrees with him.11/13/11: Three Men Arrested With Explosives in Connection to Occupy Portland
Three men from Occupy Portland were arrested during a traffic stop after officers suspected they had marijuana in their possession. Upon searching the vehicle, the drugs were discovered. The officers also found within the car firecrackers and two commercially made mortars inside glass canning jars. The three men "told authorities that they knew the canning jar would explode, causing glass shrapnel to fly and possibly cause injury."11/12/11: Woman Raped at Occupy Philadelphia
A woman was raped at the Occupy Philadelphia encampment by a man who had traveled from Michigan to join the protest. The suspect had been arrested previously for involvement in armed robberies in Kalamazoo, Michigan.11/10/11: "Send in the Clowns," Two Dressed as Clowns Arrested at Occupy Wall Street
Hannah Morgan and Louis Jargow were arrested for climbing the barricades surrounding the statue of the bull at Wall Street. They then performed a variety of antics before their arrest for disorderly behavior.11/10/11: Occupy Atlanta Shelter Tests Positive for Tuberculosis
Several people at the Atlanta shelter have contracted tuberculosis. At least one of those infected has contracted the more dangerous, drug-resistant form of TB. The shelter is one of the largest encampments at Occupy Atlanta.11/10/11: Six more arrests at Occupy Fresno
Six people were arrested last night in Fresno for failure to disperse. This brings the weekly total of arrests at Occupy Fresno to 55.11/10/11: Sotheby's Also Targeted by Occupy Wall Street, 8 Arrested
Eight protesters were arrested for attempting to storm Sotheby's during its final sale of the fall season. They were there in support of the Teamsters union, which is currently engaged in a labor dispute with Sotheby's.11/10/11: Man Shot to Death at Occupy Oakland
A young man was shot fatally in the head outside the Occupy Oakland gathering Thursday evening. There are still no suspects or leads in the case.11/9/11: 39 Arrests at Berkeley
Thirty-nine people were arrested at Berkeley as part of OccupyCal. Protesters set up tents despite Chancellor Robert Birgeneau's request that they refrain. Thirty-two students and one faculty member were among those arrested. The majority of the arrests were for obstruction of justice or unlawful assembly. Two arrests were for assault and battery.11/9/11: Occupy Wall Street Protester Assaults EMT
An EMT was injured at Occupy Wall Street. Joshua Ehrenberg, 20, of Rochester, NY, was arrested for felony assault and obstructing governmental administration for attacking the EMT. The EMT was injured when Mr. Ehrenberg's friends, in an attempt to prevent NYPD officers from assisting the EMT, fell on either a barricade or a ladder, which trapped the EMT underneath. The EMT suffered injuries to his ankle and knee.11/9/11: Occupy Wall Street Protester Arrested for Public Lewdness
Xavier Maslowsky, 25, was arrested for exposing himself to others at Zuccotti Park.11/9/11: Occupy Wall Street Protesters Arrested for Blocking Sidewalk with Square-Dance Lesson
A group of 50 protesters staged a square dance on the sidewalk around the plaza at Liberty and Cedar. The revelers were told repeatedly to disperse. Zachary Kamul, 25, was given two summonses for disorderly conduct and possession of a weapon when he refused to disperse. Sebastian Posada, 24, was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest when he attempted to run from police into the middle of Broadway.11/5/11: Man Arrested at Occupy Wall Street for Urinating on an NYPD van
Edgar Rivera, 26, was arrested for relieving himself at 1:20 a.m. on an NYPD van. He attempted to escape, but was captured a half a block away. He was charged with disorderly conduct.11/5/11: 19 Arrested at Occupy Atlanta
Protesters gathered in support of police pressure on Occupy Atlanta were subjected to arrests. Two were arrested for failing to leave Woodruff Park after the 11 p.m. close and 17 were arrested for obstructing traffic after leaving the park.11/5/11: 20 Arrested at Occupy Wall Street
Most of the protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct, though three were arrested for assaulting a police officer. The incidents occurred at Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, near the New York State Court of Appeals. According to witnesses, police had asked the protesters to refrain from blocking the sidewalks and the stairs to the courthouse.11/5/11: Woman arrested at Occupy LA for setting another person's clothes on fire
She was charged with suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.11/5/11: Woman arrested at Occupy LA for striking a man with a tent pole
She was charged with suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.11/4/11: Occupy Fort Carson Protester Arrested for $10 Million Arson
Benjamin Gilmore, 29, was arrested on suspicion of arson, burglary, and criminal mischief in connection to a fire on October 24 in a construction site.11/4/11: Occupy Wall Street protester arrested for violence in McDonald's
Fisika Bezabeh rioted inside the McDonald's by Wall Street at 2 a.m., when workers refused to give him free food. He tore a credit card reader from the counter and threw it at employees. Mr. Bezabeh has been charged with criminal mischief.11/4/11: Bronx Teacher Arrested for Assaulting Police
David Suker of Bronx Regional High School was arrested for knocking a police officer off his scooter using a shopping cart. He is charged with attempted assault, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and obstructing governmental administration. This is his second arrest; he was previously arrested during the October 1 march across the Brooklyn Bridge.11/4/11: Occupy DC Attacks Americans for Prosperity event
Protesters attempted to storm the building where the AFP was holding a conference. Afterwards, they assaulted two elderly women, sending them to the hospital, and blockaded the streets surrounding the building.11/3/11: 15 Arrested Outside Goldman Sachs
Fifteen protesters were arrested outside Goldman Sachs, including Christopher Hedges of The Nation Institute and Reverend Billy of the Church of Earthalajuh. The protesters staged a trial of Goldman Sachs executives and were arrested when they proceeded to sit and block the entrance to Goldman Sachs.11/3/11: Occupy Oakland Riots
Riot police used tear gas and other methods to disperse Occupy Oakland rioters. The protesters lit barricades on fire, hurled rocks, explosives, and other projectiles at police. Massive acts of vandalism were committed against several banks. Several dozen were eventually arrested.11/2/11: Occupy Philadelphia takes over Comcast Headquarters
Occupy Philadelphia protesters sat in Comcast's lobby and demanded repayment of its tax abatement. Nine were arrested for trespass.11/2/11: Tonye Ikebutosin Arrested for Rape at Occupy Wall Street
A 26-year-old man from Crown Heights was arrested for the sexual assault and rape of a fellow Occupy Wall Street protester. He raped the 18-year-old woman after sharing a tent with her. He is also accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old woman after helping her set up her tent. Iketubosin has been working in the Occupy Wall Street kitchen.10/27/11: 14 Arrested in NYC for March in Support of Occupy Oakland
Protesters took over the streets and marched through lower Manhattan, resulting in arrests for disorderly conduct, rioting, and resisting arrest.10/25/11: 53 Arrests at Occupy Atlanta
Fifty-three people were arrested at Occupy Atlanta. Among those arrested was State Senator Vincent Fort. This was a reversal from the previous acceptance of Occupy Atlanta by Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed. Mayor Reed explained his decision by saying, "Occupy Atlanta protesters attempted to hold an unsanctioned concert over the weekend ... Last week, demonstrators inserted wire hangers into electrical sockets to create additional power sources ... [There has been] a persistent and dangerous disregard for public safety."10/25/11: 75 Arrested During Attempted Clearing of Occupy Oakland
Police arrested 75 people while attempting to disperse the Occupy Oakland encampment.10/23/11: David Park, serial sexual assaulter, arrested
David Park, who attempted to rape several women, was finally arrested by the NYPD. The women declined to press charges, but the NYPD held him on an open-container violation.10/22/11: NYPD arrests 30 in OWS March in Harlem
Police arrested 30 protesters, including Cornel West, for blocking the entrance to the Harlem police precinct. The protesters were demonstrating against the NYPD's "stop and frisk" procedures.10/14/11: 14 Arrested by NYPD in Marches Connected with Park Cleaning
Fourteen protesters arrested despite Mayor Bloomberg's decision to halt the cleaning of the park.10/1/11: 700 Arrested for March Across the Brooklyn Bridge
Seven hundred Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct and blocking vehicular traffic when they proceeded to block the roadway on the Brooklyn Bridge.
General Thievery
This from the New York Post (via Hot Air, where Ed Morrissey has a lot more):
Thieves preying on fellow protesters
New York Post
By Larry Celona, Laura Italiano, Rebecca Harshbarger, Frank Rosario, and Jamie Schram
Last Updated: 9:35 AM, October 18, 2011
Posted: 2:43 AM, October 18, 2011
Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops -- and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.
"Stealing is our biggest problem at the moment," said Nan Terrie, 18, a kitchen and legal-team volunteer from Fort Lauderdale.
"I had my Mac stolen -- that was like $5,500. Every night, something else is gone. Last night, our entire [kitchen] budget for the day was stolen, so the first thing I had to do was . . . get the message out to our supporters that we needed food!"
Crafty cat burglars sneaked into the makeshift kitchen at Zuccotti Park overnight and swiped as much as $2,500 in donated greenbacks from right under the noses of volunteers who'd fallen asleep after a long day whipping up meals for the hundreds of hungry protesters, the volunteers said.
Security volunteer Harry Wyman, 22, of Brooklyn was furious about the thievery -- and vowed to get tough with the predatory perps.
OWS defenders will no doubt point to the existence of a security volunteer, and to be sure it is laudable that some are trying. But any honest assessment would have to conclude that criminality is rampant because this movement attracts that type of person.
This said, as I pointed out a few days ago, the entire "occupy" part of OWS is criminal because you simply cannot "occupy" public or private property.
Posted by Tom at 7:15 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 19, 2011
What 'Percent' Are You? The Numbers Behind the Tax Divide Debate
Statistics are funny things, and you can look at any one set of them a zillion different ways. As often as not the result you get depends on what conclusion you're looking for.
Both the right and the left have their own way of looking at how many Americans pay how much taxes, and I thought this article provided a pretty unbiased and fair analysis of the situation.
What 'Percent' Are You? The Numbers Behind the Tax Divide Debate
Daily Finance
by Bruce Watson
Posted 11:00AM 11/18/11
Political positions were, for a time, a matter of color: Republican were red, Democrats were blue, and nonpartisans and centrists -- when they could be found -- might claim purple. But since the Great Recession, percentages, not pigments, are becoming America's great dividers. With conservatives and liberals alike defining themselves and others as the 99%, the 1%, the 53%, the 47%, and various other percentages, it's time to ask just what these numbers mean -- and where the average American family fits in.
When it comes to dividing up our class structure, the middle is a good place to start -- namely, the 60% of households wedged between the poorest 20% and the richest 20%. These families make between $20,001 and $100,065 a year, and were the group hardest hit by the recession: In 2008, their average income fell by 3.6%, the biggest single-year drop in history. At the same time, they were also devastated by rising unemployment, mass foreclosures, soaring tuitions and frozen wages. By comparison, households below the 20% line often qualify for social welfare programs, were far less likely to own real estate, and were less affected by massive layoffs. In other words, they had less to lose, and ended up losing less.
On the other end of the spectrum, many of those above the 80% line were shielded from the harsher effects of economic downturns. And over the last 30 years, the top 20% have done quite well: Their share of all wages paid in the U.S. has gone from 50% to 60%. Everyone else has lost ground.
The 99% vs. the 1%
Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement and their allies don't think this is the best way of looking at America's households: The big dividing line in their view is the 99th percentile. In this country, they assert, there are the top 1% of households, and everyone else.
There's something to be said for Occupy Wall Street's math. As President Obama discovered when he suggested lowering the qualification line for the top tax rate to $250,000, where we place the dividing line between "the rich" and "everyone else" is highly controversial. But moving the wealth line from $100,065 to $1.1 million -- the boundary for the top 1% -- avoids the argument about who exactly is middle class fairly neatly. No matter where your political sympathies lie, it's hard to call millionaires middle class.
And the top 1% have done exceptionally well over the last 30 years: They receive 17% of all wages paid in the U.S -- more than twice the percentage they received 30 years ago. Meanwhile, the bottom 80% of households lost 9% of their income share in the same period, and now receive about 47% of all wages paid. Put simply, the richest 1% gained all the wages the rest of the country lost.
The 53% vs. the 47%
The dividing line between the 99% and the 1% is stark, but some argue there's a better one: The boundary between those who pay income taxes and those who don't. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, 53% of households pay federal income tax; the rest either break even or get back more in refunds than they pay.
In fact, the second-to-lowest 20% of the country -- households making between $20,001 and $38,043 -- get back about 0.4% more income tax than they pay; for families who make less than $20,000, it's about 6.8%.
Some conservatives -- notably on the Tumblr blog We are the 53% -- have taken these numbers to heart, arguing that this means the bottom 47% is getting a free ride. But the 53%/47% division is a bit misleading.
To begin with, almost all households pay state taxes, Medicare tax, Social Security tax, excise taxes, sales taxes, and a raft of other government fees. When this broader, and more accurate, assessment of taxation is used, the 47% doesn't look to be getting off so easy: The second poorest quintile -- the ones that got 0.4% of their income tax back -- still paid more 10% of their incomes in various federal taxes.
In fact, when everything is factored in, 86% of the country pays more than it gets back in federal taxes. As for the rest, it's not the split you might expect: More than half (8% of Americans) are senior citizens receiving Social Security.
And that last 6% -- the ones who really pay nothing to the federal government? They are unemployed, disabled, in school, or making very low incomes. But even this small group pays state and local taxes, sales taxes, and other government fees.
Where the Poor Pay More
When it comes to percentage of income, the line is even clearer: For some taxes, the bottom 20% of the Americans pay more than the top 20%. For example, a household on the bottom pays almost 54% more of its income into Social Security than a household on the top. The same goes for excise taxes -- fees attached to certain commodities like gasoline and alcohol: As a percentage of income, the poorest 20% pays more than four times as much as the richest 20%.
So where is the ultimate dividing line? The answer might have less to do with money than with the way we perceive it: In a recent poll, The Hill found that 66% of likely voters believe that the middle class is shrinking, and 55% believe that income inequality has become a big problem for the country. Surprisingly, worries about income inequality were higher among those who are doing better: 65% of respondents in the top 20% felt that income inequality was a big or somewhat big problem.
In other words, when it comes to the economy, worrying about the future may be the one thing that cuts across all class lines.
Bruce Watson is a senior features writer for DailyFinance. You can reach him by e-mail at bruce.watson@teamaol.com, or follow him on Twitter at @bruce1971.
Posted by Tom at 10:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 17, 2011
Occupy Wall Street, Protesting, and Civil Disobedience
The days news is filled with the saga of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has declared a "day of action," which marks the two month anniversary of the movement. The purpose of this day of action is to "shut down wall street" and "take back our democracy," whatever that means.
Protesting is not a theoretical to me, nor is is something I have just seen on TV or on the Internet. Between 2005 and 2009 I went to over a dozen major protests and rallies in downtown Washington DC, and over a hundred smaller ones outside of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The ones in Washington DC were of two types. One was large anti-war protests by leftist groups such as International ANSWER and United for Peace and Justice. I went uptown to join conservative groups such as Free Republic who were counter-protesting just off to the side. The second type was when there were "dueling rallies;" right-wing groups such as Gathering of Eagles staged major rallies of their own which equaled or exceeded the size of a major anti-war protest that was going on at the same time nearby. The issue at hand was primarily the war in Iraq.
See "Rallies and Protests" and "Walter Reed" under "Categories" at right for details.
I also went to one major Tea Party rally on September 9, 2009, which was also in Washington DC.
All of these events, protests, rallies, whatever you want to call them, shared several characteristics
- All groups got permits from the US Park Police well before the event date
- During the event(s) the Park Police and Washington DC Metropolitan Police were out with riot gear and sometimes mounted police. They positioned themselves between opposing groups but generally took no other action than to act as a buffer.
- Each side respected the police
- There was a defined beginning and end time
- Each group had defined leaders who "policed" their group
- There was no violence (or nothing significant to speak of) and people generally felt safe
- Each side had relatively well-defined political goals that were easy to understand
At any large gathering of people you will have exceptions to generally good behavior. But my experience is that "out of control" people were few and far between at these events.
There comes a certain point where if enough people are doing something then it becomes a characteristic of the entire group. Reasonable people can disagree when that point comes but it does exist. Attempts to paint the Tea Party as racist do not fly because racist individuals in that movement are very few and far between. Attempts to paint the International ANSWER protests as violent fail for the same reason.
All this said, I am not saying that there were no difference between the right-wing and left-wing groups during this time period. There were. Leftists dressed up in all manner of wild costumes and their signs were often vulgar and uncouth. Conservatives rarely wore anything but standard casual clothes and their (our) signs were of the standard "we're for" or "we're against" this or that variety.
What characterizes this Occupy Wall Street Movement that makes it so different?
- Occupying a public space 24 x 7 in violation of the posted hours (whether physically posted or as part of the legal code)
- Participants staying 24 x 7, or close to it
- Not obtaining permits from the relevant authorities
- A significant number of participants engaging in common criminal activity such as rapes and robberies
- Besides today's "Day of Action," OWS members directly engage in riotous behavior; criminal tresspass, interfering with road and pedestrian travel in a direct attempt to stop normal activity
- No coherent political platform or goals.
Don't believe on the rampant criminal behavior of the OWS crowd? The website OWS Exposed has the good on them.
Most of this is reminiscent of what happened in February of this year in Madison, Wisconsin. There, we had labor unions sponsoring and/or egging on people to illegally occupy the statehouse 24 x 7 in direct violation of the law. Their presence, and I believe intent, was to physically intimidate Republican lawmakers.
The bottom line is that you cannot occupy public space such as a park or building 24 x 7. A public space is just that; a place meant for the public to enjoy. Everyone has to be able to have access to it. Any one group taking it over denies others the ability to access it. This isn't democracy, it's criminality. Mob action.
Say what you will about the political goals of the Tea Party movement, but the overwhelming bulk of reports and my personal involvement show that it is a peaceful movement whose members obey they law. That the left has had to resort to their old favorite charge of "racism" (of course without evidence) shows that they have nothing on the movement.
The First Amendment to the Constitution protects "the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." I'm no scholar, but I am safe in saying that it has been interpreted to mean that groups can obtain permits to use public space for protests, demonstrations, and/or rallies as long as they are peaceful and the event has a defined start and finish time. Not that the police should not be liberal and let protesters start earlier and go on longer, for they should.
I'm also no historian, but I do know that our Founders were worried about mob rule about as much as they worried about tyranny. They wanted a government that would have enough authority to prevent mob rule yet weak enough and with enough checks and balances so as to prevent tyranny.
If Democrats and liberals want to ally themselves with the OWS crowd they are going to regret it. Perhaps they already are.
Posted by Tom at 8:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 6, 2011
Goodbye Greece! Hello USA?
How far away from this are we? Not too very far if Obama gets a second term, that's for certain.
Goodbye, Greece
National Review
November 2, 2011 4:00 A.M.
The Editors
How does one say "Goodnight, Irene" in Greek? Or "Show Me the Way to Go Home"? Or, if neither of those classic festivity-enders does the trick, "Hit the Road, Jack"? In any case, the message needs to be sent: The party is over, and it is time for Greece to be shown the door, if the Greeks cannot find it themselves, and exit the eurozone.
A Greek default appears to be imminent. The question is whether it is to be an orderly default or a chaotic one. At the moment, the odds are about even between those two possibilities.
Prime Minister George Papandreou has called a parliamentary vote of confidence and a national referendum on the European bailout conditions to be imposed on Greece. Those conditions include bondholders' taking a 50 percent haircut on Greek liabilities while the Greek government promises to enforce austerity measures to reduce spending and return the country's debt-to-GDP ratio to a more manageable level (though getting Greek debt down to the level legally required by the Treaty of Maastricht is not in the works, a fact that should put the European project in perspective). Athens has made such promises before. Greek unemployment remains high, its economy a shambles. The recent recession has made things worse than they otherwise would have been.The European Union being the European Union, it had been assumed that these conditions simply would be imposed by Brussels, without the Greek people's having a say. The vote threatens to throw a monkey wrench into European designs, and markets tanked on the news. And what would happen if the Greek electorate rejected Brussels's agenda? It is far from impossible that Brussels and Athens would simply collaborate to impose the terms in the teeth of democratic rejection. The Greeks should keep in mind the experience of those national electorates that rejected membership in the European Union only to have the same referendum voted on again and again until Brussels got its way.
Unhappily, the Europeans aren't much in funds these days, which has them appealing to China for assistance in their bailout scheme. Which is to say, not only would the deal make Athens entirely subordinate to Brussels, it would make Athens entirely subordinate to a Brussels that is partly subordinate to Beijing. That may be too high a price even for the pension-loving, debt-ridden, bailout-begging Greeks to pay.
And we would not blame them. Membership in the European Union as currently constituted is plainly incompatible with national sovereignty. In fact, the European project has quickly proved to be not only incompatible with national sovereignty but positively hostile toward it, its consolidation of transnational power and its running rough-shod over ancient nation-states exhibiting a degree of vigor and energy shocking even to the most suspicious Euro-skeptics. This incompatibility has come to a head now over fiscal questions, but it might have come to a head as easily over questions of national defense or immigration -- questions in which the interests of a France or a Finland are very different from those of a Bulgaria or a Cyprus, but which in any case will be decided in accord with no country's national interest but in accord with the interests of the bureaucratic elite in Brussels.
There is very little reason for Greece, Spain, and Portugal to share a single monetary policy with Germany and France -- their public finances, labor conditions, balance of trade, and other economic fundamentals are radically different, and cannot be brought into harmony without something approaching a soft dictatorship. The business cycles of the members of the European Union are not coordinated, and neither are their economic interests. Less competitive nations such as Greece suffer particularly from sharing a currency with highly productive nations such as Germany, because it takes away the option of using currency depreciation to make one's exports more attractive on world markets. (Germany, a strong exporter, has benefited from this arrangement.) There is some wisdom in human traditions, and it turns out that the Germans and the Greek have separate countries for a reason -- one of them being that they are separate peoples.
The theory of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is that a borderless environment with a single currency would minimize economic friction and produce vast economies of scale, making Europe's economy more competitive. Europe had an example in the United States, roughly comparable in size and population but with a much more dynamic economy, especially when it comes to the work force. There are gains to be had, unquestionably, but there are always tradeoffs, and in this case they produce a net loss for much of Europe. This was a gross miscalculation on the part of the European centralizers, who neglected to account for the fact that important, fundamental cultural differences -- including language, family habits, and religion -- mean that a Bulgarian factory worker or a Latvian financial manager cannot simply relocate to London or Paris the way an American worker can move from anywhere in the country to Houston or New York with relative ease. The formal, legal barriers to European integration are not the only barriers, nor even the most important. As it turns out, there are not many Europeans in Europe, which is mostly populated by French, Germans, Swiss, Italians, Greeks, Poles, etc. Wishful thinking will not make it otherwise.
Such realities can only be ignored for so long. The appetite of the Greek people for further austerity measures is limited, as is the appetite of the German people for expending their own hard-earned capital to prop up their careless, spendthrift neighbors. Nobody in Europe has much appetite for continued economic chaos. The best outcome and less likely outcome would be to have the economically stable northern European countries break away to form their own union. The second-best and more likely outcome is for Greece to leave the eurozone, voluntarily or involuntarily. Either scenario would probably entail a default and would bring about massive economic disruption, and not just for the Europeans. But the alternative is a prolonged, slow-motion crisis and the entrenching of the one-size-fits-all, central-planning approach from Brussels that is a very large part of the present problem and no part of its solution.
Posted by Tom at 8:32 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Obama Lost Iraq, And Did So Deliberately
Once again I am so busy I have no time for any of my usual analysis, but this Krauthammer column seems to sum up what I've been reading about the current situation.
Who Lost Iraq?
You know who.
National Review
November 3, 2011 8:00 P.M.
Charles Krauthammer
Barack Obama was a principled opponent of the Iraq War from its beginning. But when he became president in January 2009, he was handed a war that was won. The surge had succeeded. Al-Qaeda in Iraq had been routed, driven to humiliating defeat by an Anbar Awakening of Sunnis fighting side-by-side with the infidel Americans. Even more remarkably, the Shiite militias had been taken down, with American backing, by the forces of Shiite prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. They crushed the Sadr militias from Basra to Sadr City.
Al-Qaeda decimated. A Shiite prime minister taking a decisively nationalist line. Iraqi Sunnis ready to integrate into a new national government. U.S. casualties at their lowest ebb in the entire war. Elections approaching. Obama was left with but a single task: Negotiate a new status-of-forces agreement (SOFA) to reinforce these gains and create a strategic partnership with the Arab world's only democracy.
He blew it. Negotiations, such as they were, finally collapsed last month. There is no agreement, no partnership. As of December 31, the American military presence in Iraq will be liquidated.
And it's not as if that deadline snuck up on Obama. He had three years to prepare for it. Everyone involved, Iraqi and American, knew that the 2008 SOFA calling for full U.S. withdrawal was meant to be renegotiated. And all major parties but one (the Sadr faction) had an interest in some residual stabilizing U.S. force, like the postwar deployments in Japan, Germany, and Korea.Three years, two abject failures. The first was the administration's inability, at the height of American post-surge power, to broker a centrist nationalist coalition governed by the major blocs -- one predominantly Shiite (Maliki's), one predominantly Sunni (Ayad Allawi's), one Kurdish -- that among them won a large majority (69 percent) of seats in the 2010 election.
Vice President Joe Biden was given the job. He failed utterly. The government ended up effectively being run by a narrow sectarian coalition where the balance of power is held by the relatively small (12 percent) Iranian-client Sadr faction.
The second failure was the SOFA itself. The military recommended nearly 20,000 troops, considerably fewer than our 28,500 in Korea, 40,000 in Japan, and 54,000 in Germany. The president rejected those proposals, choosing instead a level of 3,000 to 5,000 troops.
A deployment so risibly small would have to expend all its energies simply protecting itself -- the fate of our tragic, missionless 1982 Lebanon deployment -- with no real capability to train the Iraqis, build their U.S.-equipped air force, mediate ethnic disputes (as we have successfully done, for example, between local Arabs and Kurds), operate surveillance and special-ops bases, and establish the kind of close military-to-military relations that undergird our strongest alliances.
The Obama proposal was an unmistakable signal of unseriousness. It became clear that he simply wanted out, leaving any Iraqi foolish enough to maintain a pro-American orientation exposed to Iranian influence, now unopposed and potentially lethal. Message received. Just this past week, Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurds -- for two decades the staunchest of U.S. allies -- visited Tehran to bend a knee to both Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It didn't have to be this way. Our friends did not have to be left out in the cold to seek Iranian protection. Three years and a won war had given Obama the opportunity to establish a lasting strategic alliance with the Arab world's second most important power.
He failed, though he hardly tried very hard. The excuse is Iraqi refusal to grant legal immunity to U.S. forces. But the Bush administration encountered the same problem, and overcame it. Obama had little desire to. Indeed, he portrays the evacuation as a success, the fulfillment of a campaign promise.
But surely the obligation to defend the security and the interests of the nation supersede personal vindication. Obama opposed the war, but when he became commander-in-chief the terrible price had already been paid in blood and treasure. His obligation was to make something of that sacrifice, to secure the strategic gains that sacrifice had already achieved.
He did not, failing at precisely what this administration so flatters itself for doing so well: diplomacy. After years of allegedly clumsy brutish force, Obama was to usher in an era of not hard power, not soft power, but smart power.
Which turns out in Iraq to be . . . no power. Years from now we will be asking not "Who lost Iraq?" -- that already is clear -- but "Why?"
Posted by Tom at 8:27 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
